This is sort of out of order since we spend a day in Seattle first (which in itself was nice to explore) but since Alaska and the Inside Passage was the main reason for the visit and most spectacular of all that we saw I decided to start here first.
As an interesting side note we only saw two motorcycles while in Alaska (beside the rental ones in Ketchikan), both BMW GS’s one a boxer and one F bike. The boxer looked like it was fitted for some serious traveling, note the second set of tires for pavement. Both were in Skagway, which makes sense since of the three towns we visited it was the only one that can be reached by road from the outside. Both Juneau and Ketchikan can only be reached by water or air, no roads in or out. Ketchikan has only 35 miles of roadway in the entire town. On the main highway along the coast in Juneau there is a sign at one end that says “This is the end of the road”. At the other end there is a sign that says
“This is the Other end” Ha Ha!
Link to all the pictures sorted by area….
http://roadrunes.com/photo/v/Alaska/
if you click on one of the four sections then the little icon of the screen in the upper left after going into each gallery it will start a slideshow with options for sizing and timing of photos.
Panorama of the Olympic National Park on the way of out of Seattle on the first day of our trip to Alaska
http://roadrunes.com/photo/main.php?g2_view=panorama.Panorama&g2_itemId=69169
glacier at end of fjord we traveled the second day, sadly we couldn't get as close as we would have liked due to all the icebergs near the base of the glacier. There has been a lot of melting and receding of them the past years as was evident from the bare rock faces near the terminator as explained by the nature expert on board the ship. It seems that due to the fact this is in a rain forest area, moss grows quickly and within a year to two any exposed rock faces is overgrown with it. The fact that there is so much bare rock attests to the high rate of recession of the glacier. We saw evidence of this at all three we visited. Sad news indeed.
Note that these pic only show the tip of the glacier and that it extends some 15 mile back behind where the glacier bends around and is hidden from view as seen in these images and is I forget how many hundreds or thousands of feet thick at its deepest.
first sighting
and tons of cool jagged edged peaks rising thousands of feet literally straight up from the narrow fjord that was carved by the glaciers of the last major ice age.
another glacier as we steamed up the fjord
we saw I don’t know how many waterfalls/water courses during our trip… many thousands of feet high
and many really interesting rock faces
note the water really was this deep blue-green color the day we sailed the fjord due to the plentiful sunshine (the only day we had any to speak of!)
lots of iceburgs, and again they really were this color due to the ice being so compacted
and yes, I put that ice rock there just for this photo! (damn that water was cold!)
next up some pics from Seattle Center in the area where we stayed overnight before boarding the ship. We stayed in very nice old hotel near the Space Needle which we went up since we had a half day to explore as well as wonder around some of the neighborhood near the hotel.
